


Talking to the Dead (Hannibal Ficlets)

by lovetincture



Category: Community (TV), Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Drabble Collection, Ficlet Collection, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-20
Updated: 2020-04-23
Packaged: 2020-07-09 01:49:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 4,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19879624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovetincture/pseuds/lovetincture
Summary: A collection of ficlets too short to have their own standalone posts on AO3





	1. Chiyoh

“You ate at his table, so you must have liked it.”

Will is tired of having this argument. It goes round and around in circles, and it always ends the same. He wishes she would stop torturing him, but he takes his place in the conversation just as he’s supposed to. To do otherwise would be rude.

“I didn’t—not all the time. It was for a purpose. I meant to catch him. Cage him. Surely you can understand that.”

Chiyoh’s gaze is steel overlaid with a soft and pretty face, and she gives no quarter. “Intention has very little to do with outcome. Actions matter, not thoughts. Whether you liked it or not has little bearing on what you did. Who you ate.”

“You just said that I liked it. You said it as though it has some bearing on how I will be judged.”

She shrugs one slim shoulder. “This is your mind, your thoughts. I can hardly help it if they pull in many directions at once.”

“I liked you better when you were Abigail.”

“And yet you’ve decided that Abigail deserves to go to her rest in peace, away from all of this. You’ve decided I deserve no such consideration.”

Unfair.

“You’re alive, living and thriving somewhere far away from the both of us. What I do in my mind hardly affects you. In fact it doesn’t affect you at all.”

She looks at him as though he’s stupid. It’s the look he’d seen before she pushed him from the back of a moving train, memorized and repurposed in perfect living detail. “If you think that I’m free from this, you may have hit your head harder than I thought. None of us are ever getting free, not from him.”

Will smiles, and it tugs at the edges of his scar. “Now you do sound like Abigail.”

“Of course I do.”

They’re silent for a while longer, watching the sun as it sinks over the rushes. Chiyoh breaks the silence first. She cocks her head.

“When you imagine that I’m happy, that I’m living somewhere in—Europe?” She looks to him for confirmation and he nods. “When you imagine that I’m free and thriving, does it comfort you?”

He watches a thrush sing from the bushes, looking for its mate.

“I like to think that everyone we’ve touched is living out their lives somewhere far away. Like we’ve been cut cleanly away, excised like a tumor, and the body has healed around the hole we left, neatly and without a scar. I like to think no one remembers us at all.” The bird’s mate joins it, and they fling themselves into the sky together, swooping and dipping against the backdrop of a vibrant sunset. “But I know it’s unlikely, so I don’t find much comfort in it.”

“That’s good,” Chiyoh says. “I don’t like the idea of you being comforted.”

“No, you like the idea of me being judged.”

She stares at the side of his head until he turns. The weight of her gaze burns against his scar, and she looks until she’s sure he’s looking.

“No,” she says. “You do.”


	2. Abigail

“But which one is the best?” Will asks, looking at the various realities shimmering in front of him like water in a pond. He sticks his hand out to touch one, and it ripples.

The best of all possible worlds, someone had said that to him once. It echoes in his head.

Abigail tosses her hair and shrugs. “They’re all terrible in their own way.”

She's sarcastic for an oracle. He doesn't say it aloud, but she must hear it anyway because she gives him a grin with too many teeth.

“I’m still a teenager.”

Will swallows. He tries to find the question that will earn him the answer he wants. “Are there any where we’re happy?”

Another shrug. “Sometimes.”

“Are there any where you live?”

She gives him a flat look.

“No.”


	3. Beverly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Doesn’t it bother you? What he is. What he's done.” 
> 
> Beverly, Will, and beer.

Will is lying on his back in the middle of a cold, wet field. It hasn’t rained lately that he’s aware of, but the ground is damp all the same. He doesn’t mind very much, not even when the cold starts to prickle at his skin, wetting him through layers of flannel and denim. He’s far away from the city here. There’s not a light on the ground for miles. No people either. The sharp, stiff grass presses into his arm where it’s propped beneath his head.

“You’ve got to stop bringing me here like this, Graham.”

Will takes another long pull of his beer, the stuff Hannibal would call swill, domestic and thin. His palate has changed enough that he appreciates the craft beer that Hannibal sometimes brews, stuffed full of hops, yarrow, other things he can barely pronounce. His tastes have changed enough that this may as well be metallic water, but he drinks it for the ritual of it, for the nostalgia buried in between swigs of cheap beer.

“Don’t you like the view?” He asks, turning his head toward Beverly.

She shrugs. “I’d like it better if I weren’t dead.”

“But aren’t the stars nice?”

She doesn’t say anything. He drinks his beer.

“Doesn’t it bother you?” Beverly asks, propping herself up to look at Will’s face. Even knowing she isn’t real, it makes him squirm. “What he is. What he’s done?”

Will makes eye contact for just a second, because he owes her that much. It’s hard to sustain even when she isn’t there, the flinty, knowing look in her eyes and his own particular pathology combining to mean that his gaze slides off her face like water from a rock. She has mercy on him eventually and resettles herself at his side, pillowing her head on her hands to stargaze with him.

His eyes trace the slow path they cut across the sky, Cassiopeia and Orion. A million pinpricks of light. She doesn’t say anything, but he knows she’s still waiting.

“It should,” he says after a time.

“But it doesn’t,” Beverly says.

“No,” Will says. “It doesn’t.”

She sighs. “Pass me a beer.”


	4. A Love Simple and Tender

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Doesn't it hurt, loving someone like this?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little drabble inspired by [Tei's](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tei/pseuds/tei) beautiful fic, [Un lamou dou é onté](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20859515/chapters/49676573). [Shatou ](https://twitter.com/_shatou_) made [two beautiful pieces of fanart](https://twitter.com/_shatou_/status/1212730974494019585) for her fic, and I was particularly inspired by the second fix-it piece they made.
> 
> This is just a short little coda that veers off in a slightly different direction from the original.

In the aftermath of their pleasure, Hannibal pulls Will’s head up from where he’s breathing humid, shallow breaths against Hannibal’s skin. The touch is nothing more than the suggestion of pressure, a warm hand against his chin.

He’s hot and sticky in his skin, body stuck to Hannibal’s under the covers in all the places they touch. He’d sweated through the sheets before they’d laid a finger on each other, and it’s only gotten worse, the exquisitely expensive cotton sheets grown slippery under their bodies. It’s a remarkably unpleasant feeling, but still nothing compared to the discomfort of Hannibal staring into his eyes, searching with a keenness that cuts like a knife.

“You’re crying.”

Will doesn’t wonder that Hannibal can see him even in the dark, and Hannibal doesn’t wipe his tears away. He doesn’t offer comfort or an end to the pain. He simply drinks it down, eyes tracking the progress of each tear as it falls, adding to the ocean of salt their bodies have made of the bed. Will doesn’t pull away. This is reciprocity. This is where they live—seeing and being seen, a mirror observing itself.

“Doesn’t it hurt?” Will asks, touching the bow of Hannibal’s mouth. “Loving someone like this.”

“Every day.”

Will waits until Hannibal has looked his fill before pulling away gently. They are careful with each other as only those living in glass houses can be, delicate and cautious, wary of moments with rocks in their fists. Will tucks his head into the crook of Hannibal’s neck and breathes deep, taking in the sleep-warmed scent of him. He smells like sweat and sour morning breath, like the remnants of soap they both share.

He smells living and animal.

Will wonders if he’ll have to give it back eventually; everything dies. Hannibal talks of God often, in the language of church collapses and dead devotees. Will doesn’t wonder at it, not like Hannibal does. He’s content to leave God in the halls of his childhood, haunting the dusty churches Will had been dragged to in his ratty Sunday’s best, in those pews stuffed with cloying devotion that made him ache and gag. Hannibal can do the same—what does Will need God for?

He does think, sometimes, that if there’s a heaven at all, it’s not for the two of them.

It suits him just fine. If he’s expected to give Hannibal back—to the law or the world, to God himself—they’ll have to take him from Will’s bloody hands.

Not even Will’s dreams can have him.


	5. The Darkest Timeline

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will Graham meets Abed Nadir.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been rewatching Community, and considering "The Darkest Timeline" has been what I've called the [Way Down series](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1472657) in my head forever, it seemed only fitting to bring in the source. A Community x Way Down verse crossover.

“Oh, I get it,” Abed says. “You’re in the darkest timeline.”

“What?”

“Whenever there’s an event that could go one of multiple possible ways—coin tosses, dice rolls—it creates splinters in the timeline. Offshoots, if you will. Some of those timelines are better than others. And if some are better and some are worse, then it stands to reason that one of them is worst of all—the darkest timeline. Have you rolled any dice recently?”

“No, I haven’t.”

Abed drinks his cocktail, and Will toys with his glass, rolling its edge along the bar counter to watch the whiskey slosh against the sides. This is crazy. The kid—and he really is a kid, younger than Adam, even—clearly has one foot planted firmly in the realm of fantasy. Every other word out of his mouth is a movie reference, reality and fiction twining together in a screaming technicolor amalgam. But—

“I did jump off a cliff holding the love of my life.”

Abed’s face doesn’t change. “Murder-suicide attempt?”

“A roll of the dice,” Will says at last.

“Well, there’s your problem,” Abed says. He launches into some kind of bit, a pop culture reference Will doesn’t understand, and Will leaves him to it, draining the last of his drink.

It sticks with him despite his better judgment, buzzing in his head along with the whiskey the entire walk home.

* * *

Abed wanders back to the group. Britta and Jeff have stopped arguing in favor of hanging all over each other trying to swallow each other’s faces. Shirley is nowhere to be seen, and Annie is alternating between staring into her drink and staring at Jeff and Britta.

“Hey buddy, where you been?” Troy asks.

“I was talking to someone at the bar. I think he killed someone.”

“Cool.”

“Do you want to go home and watch Inspector Spacetime?” Abed asks.

“Yeah,” Troy says. “Drunk people are boring.”

“Tell me about it.”


	6. Pigs and Pot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will and his dad talk about pot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a scene I wrote for [Far from the Tree](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22359229) that didn't end up fitting. I still like it a lot, though, so I'll just post it here as a little outtake. If you haven't read that fic, all you need to know is that Will's dad comes to France to visit him and Hannibal several years post-fall.

"Your boyfriend, is he on drugs?"

Will laughs, a limping, humorless thing. "Him? No, it would upset the balance of the ironclad control he thinks he has."

His dad raises his eyebrows. "There's a story there," he says, but he doesn't push it. "How about you? You ever light up a joint? You know you can do that now that you're not a pig anymore."

Will winces at the word ‘pig’—can't help it. There are too many associations with that word now. Most of them come with the scent of blood and the sound of screams, the taste of Hannibal's cooking on his tongue, rich and salty.

"Don't call them pigs, Dad." He rolls his eyes more out of force of habit than anything else.

His dad snorts. "Son, you're a goddamn serial killer. You can call the pigs what they are."

Will shrugs. Doesn't say anything. Takes another drag of his cigarette. He's not a seasoned smoker. His dad finishes his cigarette before Will is finished with his, but even so, Will smokes it down to the filter. "I tried it a couple times, in high school. In college."

"Caught you one of those times," Bill says.

Will's mouth twists up in a hint of a smile. He remembers

"It never really appealed," he says. "Getting out of my own head was never really the problem. Associations came freely—stemming the tide was the part I never quite got the hang of." He shrugs. Stubs out his cigarette underfoot, then picks it up because Hannibal might murder him if he leaves cigarette butts littering the lawn. "So no, I don't really like drugs."


	7. until the feast presents itself

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Life post-capture. Hannibal and Will communicate in prison.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WELL THIS GOT SAD. Y'all can thank [thebeespatella](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebeespatella/pseuds/thebeespatella) for putting this in my brain.

Will blinks, soot-dark eyelashes fanning against the hollow space beneath his eye. He’s gotten too thin. The skin papered over his orbital socket looks fine and bruised, purple-black shadows bright as a beacon. He hasn’t been sleeping.

Hannibal blinks back. Slow, feather light pulses. Will doesn’t smile, but his eyes do something at the corners—a subtle tightening, a pinch. They lift fractionally, and so does something heavy seated low in Hannibal’s heart.

Will blinks again, five in rapid succession.

_How are you?_

Hannibal blinks twice.

_I’m fine, darling._

They cut the power in his cell this week. Turned off the lights and left him in the dark—a new nurse flexing their power, paltry though it may be. Management here certainly isn’t what it used to be.

That stunt didn’t bother him nearly as much as the nurse would have hoped. Hannibal hasn’t lost the trick of living in his mind in the intervening years, when he and Will had been reckless and free. If anything, those brilliant, joyful years have made this period of separation more enjoyable, if also more painful. He had the opportunity to store up a veritable treasure trove of memories, bright-gleaming baubles that sustain him.

He’d barely spent an hour fantasizing about the rude nurse’s death. Instead, he spent his time in Paris, in the flat he and Will had shared. He doesn’t even edit out Will’s pack of mongrels, though he does paint their furniture more pristine than it was in life. He can be forgiven, he thinks, for paving his fantasies with considerably less dog hair. Verisimilitude over accuracy.

But he has no way of telling Will any of that.

Their visitation privileges were a condition of their surrender. Every week, they’re afforded the opportunity to sit in each other’s presence under armed guard, a pane of soundproof glass between them.

It’s nowhere near enough, not even close, but Hannibal will survive on scraps if he has to, biding his time until a feast presents itself. He’s done it before.

Hannibal blinks.


	8. To Drown on Dry Land

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sex in the time of a pandemic. Post-fall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cn: coronavirus

“You can’t keep the plague out by keeping us in here, you know.”

“Will,” Hannibal says, longsuffering and pained with his irreverence even now. “It’s not the _plague.”_

“Sure feels like it.” His head rolls along the pillow, toward the window. He stares out at nothing, at the black nothingness beyond. “Feels like the whole world’s ending.”

Will’s thoughts are elsewhere, and that is something Hannibal can’t abide. He twitches his fingers, pulls them toward himself—towards the heavens, who knows. He rubs the inside of Will with damp fingertips, feeling every blood-red part of him. Will squirms against the bedsheets, pushes his thighs wider, and _there_ he is.

Now he’s looking at Hannibal, thinking about Hannibal, and that’s much better.

Hannibal drags his fingers out slowly before pushing them back in, inch by torturous inch. The abundance of lube between their bodies squelches with vulgarity, and Will lets out a beautiful, guttural groan. Hannibal basks in the utter contentment of being exactly where he wants to be.

His penis twitches, stirring with interest at the sounds coming from Will, but he will not get hard again. They’ve been at this for too long, pushed their bodies to the limit too many times for that to be a possibility. It’s of no consequence. This is about nothing so banal, nothing so _common_ as orgasm or penetration.

His own flesh burns where it’s been chafed red and raw, and he knows that however much he aches, Will must be hurting far worse. It does nothing to stay his hand. Nothing to stop him from pressing against the tender nub of Will’s prostate, swollen and abused. Will mewls and writhes. His body arches off the bed as he takes utter leave of his senses, unsure whether he wants to buck Hannibal off or pull him closer.

That is what he wants.

It’s what he can have, what he can give. There are a great many things he can’t fix, things beyond the machinations of any man—a virus, a neat cluster of cells multiplying in the throat and lungs of the unsuspecting, a veritable factory of disease and death. It’s elegant. Quieter than a church collapse. Perhaps God does want to see men drown on dry land.

He doesn’t regret this pandemic except that it inhibits their ability to travel. He regrets the effect it has on Will, who is still so curiously troubled by the dead and the dying.

He wonders what it’s like, in fleeting moments, to care so intimately for strangers that you might hurt yourself with their pain. Will would tell him, if he asked. Will is generous with him these days. He will not ask.

No, Hannibal would not halt the spread of this disease even if he could, but he does see fit to distract Will for hours at a time, for however long Will allows him. This is something he can give, a simple kind of care.

And if it suits him just as well, if it delights him straight down to his toes, well. So much the better.


	9. According to Their Nature

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will has always loved dogs. The thing is, he's not sure this is actually a dog.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The world sucks right now, like a whole lot, so have this tiny bite of fluff inspired by [this adorable tweet by graintairess on Twitter](https://twitter.com/grantairess/status/1241561744025272322).

Will Graham loves dogs. He always has. It was love at first sight, from the first rangy, dirty, skin-and-bones mutt that had followed him home from school when he was just skin and bones himself—the one his dad had let him keep with rolled eyes and a heavy sigh.

He’s always loved dogs. All of them, every breed, shape, and size, but this—

The thing is, he’s not even really sure it’s a dog.

It’s _tiny,_ for one thing. It looks more like a scrap of dryer lint, and he’s halfway convinced it’ll get carried away on a strong breeze. Hell, he’s half afraid one of his own dogs might eat it. He’s not sure he’d blame them.

“What is that?” he asks when Hannibal brings it home. It cowers ridiculously in the back of a tiny kennel that nevertheless looks much too big for it. Will thinks the kennel is empty before Hannibal reaches his hand in and draws out a yawning, shivering scrap of fur.

“This is Adele.”

Will’s eyebrows shoot up. “Okay, but what _is_ it?”

Hannibal sniffs. _“She_ is a teacup Pomeranian. And her name is Adele.”

“Adele.”

Hannibal nods.

Of course that would be the dog Hannibal picks. It’s impractical and ridiculous, just like him. Worst of all, he coddles it.

There’s nothing more annoying than witnessing someone ruin a good dog—although Will isn’t fully willing to admit this is in fact a dog—and Hannibal is doing it right in front of his nose. He feeds Adele scraps from the table, coos at her when she barks for attention, and scoops her up when she stubbornly decides walking is for the birds.

“You’re spoiling her,” Will says as Hannibal picks up the yapping little monster.

“I’m doing no such thing. She was bred for companionship and aesthetics. I would argue that I’m merely helping her fulfill her true nature.”

“Murderers gotta murder, and tiny dogs need to sit on laps to be pampered?”

Hannibal’s eyes crinkle. “Something like that.”

“You’re unbearable. You know that, right?”

“I too must fulfill my nature,” Hannibal deadpans.

“I hate you.”

He grumbles, but he lets Hannibal pull him in for a kiss. He’s careful not to crush Adele when he pulls Hannibal in close.


	10. Liberties

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Small intimacies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy birthday, [Tei](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tei)! I feel so lucky to have met you. My life is richer for having you in it. ♥
> 
> Here's a small thing, but a thing all the same:

“What do you think about when you think of blood?” Will stirs the thick, ruby syrup, watching it leave candy-colored smudges on the side of the pot.

Hannibal steps into the space behind him, his hand coming up to cup Will’s hip as he leans to take the wooden spoon from Will’s hand. It’s easy and domestic, a casual invasion only possible when trust is present. It’s funny, Will thinks. He doesn’t feel like he trusts Hannibal.

But neither does he feel the need to move away. His body leans into Hannibal’s, an animal with a mind of its own. He inhales the spicy scent of Hannibal’s cologne, tasteful and rich just below the sugar scent rising all around them.

Hannibal runs the spoon along the sides of the pot, scraping the bottom to make sure the strawberries don’t burn.

“I think of life. Life in the form of red platelets pumping through a heart, carrying oxygen through a body—or out of a body, as the case may be. That’s done, I think.” He turns off the stove and transfers the pot to a cool burner. “What do you think of?”

Will looks up at the ceiling, thinking. Hannibal lets him, straining the pulp from the syrup while Will shuffles through the card catalogue of his mind. The wet thwack of the spoon against limp, masticated fruit reminds him of the sound of fists against a body. He thinks of the sound Randall Tier’s skull made when it cracked.

“I think of snow,” Will says.

“Why snow?”

“Something about the contrast—dark red stark against white. It’s very nearly Biblical.”

“Mm.” Hannibal sucks a stray bit of syrup off the webbing of skin between his thumb and forefinger. The strawberry mash is hot. It leaves a raised, red weal behind it, the skin livid and angry, blood rising to the surface.

Will plucks the spoon out of Hannibal’s hand and sets it on the counter. It’ll stain, maybe. It’ll be hell to scrub off. He brings Hannibal’s hand to his mouth and sucks on the abused skin. It’s hot and damp. He tastes like strawberries and below it, skin.

Hannibal makes a soft sound, a pleased rumble that wants to be a moan. He cups the back of Will’s head just briefly, fingers rifling through his hair. He presses a kiss to the side of Will’s temple and then lets him go.

“Later, I think,” Hannibal murmurs, pulling back. “I want to bottle this before it cools.”

Will nods, releasing Hannibal with a last kiss pressed to his palm.

Hannibal lifts up the pot and pours, the corded muscles of his forearms standing out in sharp relief. Their conversation lapses into silence, not a sound in their kitchen but the occasional clink of tempered glass. Outside, a summer shower soaks the ground. There’s peace in knowing there’s time enough for this. Time enough for all of it.

Will leans against the counter and watches.


	11. Forever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will and Abigail share some ice cream.

"What do we do here?" Will asks.

"Pretty much just this."

The space is... odd. It’s a river, right down to the most minute details—the water wet against his toes, the vegetal scent of algae—but then it isn't. It fades out at the edges, somehow an incomplete picture, as if the painter had suddenly got bored. Ice cream drips down his fingers, sticky-white vanilla. He can smell it before he even takes a lick. He can see the little black flecks of actual vanilla beans, which means it’s the good kind of ice cream he only remembers eating on special occasions.

He can’t remember the last time he ate ice cream.

“Here, wait. You can do this here, watch.” Abigail takes a bite out of her ice cream cone, teeth straight into the frozen center of it, and Will winces in sympathy. She takes another bite and shakes her head. “No, it doesn’t hurt. Try it.”

He wants to do what she says. He will, just—

“Is any of this real? Did he kill us both?”

She shrugs. “If you can’t tell the difference, does it matter?”

He doesn’t know. It seems like it should.

She nods at the cone clutched in his hand. “Your ice cream is melting. You better hurry up and eat it, if you’re gonna.”

“Huh.”

So it is. It’s dripping over his hand in thick runnels now. Milky-white droplets fall into the water, heavy and full. A cloudy stain spreads everywhere they land. He wonders if the fish like ice cream here.

“We just… eat ice cream forever?”

“And look at the stream. We can fish if you want.” Abigail shrugs again. “Pretty much.”

“That sounds… nice.”

He slurps up the melted ice cream making a mess of his hand. It’s as sweet as he remembers. It tastes just like the stuff his grandma made, the one and only time he’d gotten to visit her before she’d died. He can’t remember her face. It tastes like childhood summers and afternoons spent with his first dog, whose face he does remember. It’s so sweet he could almost cry.

But Abigail is waiting, watching with an expression on her face that he can’t quite place. It looks like it might twist into tears at any moment, like she’s sad, and he doesn’t want her to be sad. Not here.

So he makes eye contact, which is easier than it ever used to be, and grins, and he takes a big bite out of the ice cream that somehow never gets any smaller despite constantly melting into the river.

She’s right. It doesn’t hurt at all.


End file.
